Embed cred: how close is too close for embedded reporters?

• Author: Kulish, Nicholas
• Position: On Political Books - Book Review

It must have taken all of 10 minutes after I showed up at Ali Al Salem air base in Kuwait for word to filter back stateside that HMLA-267 (a Marine light attack helicopter squadron) was being covered by The Wall Street Journal, as represented by yours truly. The support networks between military families are very sophisticated and Internet-savvy. My articles quickly raced through email groups. But the messages I received were rarely about the stories. The Marines were cut off from email shortly before the invasion began. Instead it was personal. "Is my husband okay?" "Say hello to Bob." "Can you tell me how he's doing?" "Is everyone safe?" "Please give him a hug for me" I wasn't sure what would have happened if I'd tried to give a macho Cobra helicopter pilot a hug, so I didn't follow through on that one, but a lot of the other messages were answered and greetings passed on. I sometimes felt like the squadrod's designated Red Cross representative.

The American public was inundated with the coverage of the Iraq conflict, but the pressure inherent in the relationship between the military and the 600-odd journalists who covered them, were little explored. We were trying to serve our readers, listeners, and audience without endangering the troops. We wanted to make friends without losing perspective and transmit information using sandstorm-befouled equipment as we bumped along together toward Baghdad.

Bill Katovsky, a former researcher at the Brookings Institution, and Timothy Carlson, a former staff writer for the Los Angles Herald Examiner, have written Embedded: The Media at War in Iraq. It is a work of oral history based on interviews with 61 people who were involved in covering the war, from photographers and military public-affairs officers, to drivers and fighting soldiers, even a peace activist. The introductions can be clunky, especially some failed attempts at humor, but they are short and only meant to provide context. The book may not automatically appeal to the average reader because journalists like to talk shop. But anyone interested in the profession or firsthand experience of the war would be well served by picking it np.

The book illuminates the differences between the demands of diverse types of news organizations. For newspaper reporters, the job meant a story once or twice a day. For television, it was about overcoming the enormous technical hurdles of near constant broadcasting. After returning to the States, I was...